


A Special Child

by CallaFallon



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU Season 6, Empath Rumbaby, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 13:26:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8491477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallaFallon/pseuds/CallaFallon
Summary: An AU of Season 6 based on the idea that RumBelle's child is a powerful empath, which is why he was acting the way he did in 6x01. Taking prompts and sort of using this as a fix-it fic for Season 6, but with no actual story of its own. Just interconnected short stories or episode AUs.





	1. After 6x03

Rumplestilstkin had an ulterior motive.

When he had bartered with Charming to deliver the tape in part he had wanted to reach out to Belle. He was annoyed that she had decided to stay on the Jolly Roger instead of one of his many properties. His critical mind, the one that seemed to have the voice of his father, told him that she had done it to intentionally infuriate him. Going to the man who had taken his first wife, and who now seemed to have replaced Bae in Emma and Henry’s world, could only be meant as an insult. 

Except Belle didn’t think with that critical voice. She assumed the best about everyone. Even more importantly, she hadn’t moved her wardrobe or her personal book collection. That was a good sign. She wasn’t leaving him forever, especially since raising a baby on a boat was a terrible plan. She just needed some time and space. 

He was willing to grant her that. After all, he had done an admirable job leaving her alone when she was with the thief. He probably wouldn’t have even made the small step of sending the tape, except there was more than just their relationship at stake. He could live with Belle being angry at him, as much as that hurt, because he had been aware that his deceptions could push her away. He’d loved her always expecting her to leave, and so it shouldn’t hurt that much when she finally did. It was the fact that his son seemed to be against him that really hurt. He never took any pride on his ability to be a husband, but he was a good father. The idea that his son already hated him, before even meeting in the real world, was an open wound. 

It also was suspicious. Belle was less than a month pregnant. There was no way that their child should be able to already have enough understanding to hate him, or to love Belle with the requisite understanding necessary to wake her. The sands of Morpheus might have done something to impact their interaction, or to make it possible anyway, but it wouldn’t be able to create a total personality. Could it be some type of trick? Or was there some other possibility. 

The only way to tell would be to talk to the man again. 

The sleeping spell should still bind them, if he could get his son to sleep, which is where the poem came in. After all, what was lullaby but a bit of magic to get a child to sleep. It was even more powerful when said by a sorcerer. 

And so, Rumplestiltskin was waiting in the foggy nexus of the dream world when his son appeared there. No longer in the guise of Morpheus, the young man wore a simple black tunic and matching pants. 

“Hello Father,” he said absently.

 

“Son,” Rumplestiltskin replied, nodding his head slightly. Well, that answered that question. Part of him had held out hope that the vision had not been his child. The fact he was here now, after hearing his poem, meant that he was real. Some third party couldn’t have known that he would do this. 

Now that he knew who the man was, Rumple looked at him more closely. He was taller than either he or Belle, but then again maybe Rumplestiltskin’s height had been impacted by the poor nutrition in the old world. The eyes and face were unmistakably his. A pity that he didn’t have more of his Mother in him, if only because it would have been easier to talk to him if he could see Belle instead of his own reflection. 

The boy shook his head. “Poor mother, she really believed that you were demonstrating your change for the better. She will be so disappointed to realize you were using magic on us.” 

“I don’t see why? What is so wrong with a father wanting to spend some bonding time with his son?” 

The young man rolled his eyes. “Nothing is wrong with it. Which is why you could have just asked her.” He held up his hand before his father could respond. “I know, you have your reasons. She wouldn’t let you. She’d try and talk you out of it. She might say no. You don’t see the purpose of asking when you can just do it and she’ll never find out.” 

 _Can you read my thoughts?_ Rumple wondered. _Tell me if you can, you brat._ When the boy didn’t respond Rumple moved on to the next option. He wasn’t telepathic, yet he still seemed able to know what he and Belle were thinking. Or at least what they were feeling. 

Rumplestiltskin had carefully built a wall around his feelings, it was needed in magic practice to keep them from getting away from you. He had always managed to let them down around Belle, even when he had not meant to, but he was more deliberate with their son. He carefully focused on the love he felt for his son, and how much he already cared for him. Immediately the man seemed to feel it, closing his eyes and breathing heavily. His son tilted his head slightly, and then frowned. “Please, you don’t actually care about me. Stop pretending that you do.” 

“You’re an empath,” Rumplestiltskin said, to himself as much to the boy. That at least started to explain some of what had happened in the dream. The details being wrong in the Dark Castle and how a cluster of cells could already experience love and hate so deeply. Empathic abilities were fairly common in children born from true love, but usually only at the most basic levels. The ability to feel a single emotion, or to sense the truth that someone was hiding. Sometimes they could pick up more, such as the memory behind a feeling. However, he had never heard of a child who was able to do so at the level that their son could. 

Then again, there had never been a child born of true love of a dark magical lineage. 

“I do love you. Very much. Why would you think otherwise?” 

“Because, you didn’t have this feeling for me before. When you told mother about me I felt love. I know what that feels like. She loved me completely and totally. Even before she knew, she was filled with lightness and joy. It feels like…” 

His voice faded out. He didn’t know what if felt like. Rumple could feel his confusion as if it was his own. _Not only an empath, but also a projector._

 It was rare, but some empaths had the ability to project emotions to others. It was frighteningly powerful, the ability to make people feel things they otherwise wouldn’t feel. It could also be terrible dangerous in the hands of someone who is untrained. It could create a feedback loop of continuing emotions, a cyclone of sadness or anger, that would eventually drive someone to madness. Even happiness in that type of continual cycle could overwhelm the mind to the point where it could not be saved. 

“Yes, that is more like it,” his son said.  “That is what I felt from you the moment I felt you near mother.” 

Fear. Yes, of course that was the first thing he had sensed from him. Rumplestiltskin was trying to find a way to save his unborn child from Hades. He had run into Belle in the underworld and was terrified of how she had gotten there. 

“I am afraid for you,” Rumplestiltskin said, working to calm his emotions except for the love. “I’m afraid because I care. You don’t understand how powerful you are.”

 “No. Not power. I hate power. I don’t want it.” He seemed on the verge of a tantrum, and it must have been Belle’s own feelings that he was picking up. He might have been with Rumplestiltskin in this dream world, but he was still inside Belle in the physical one. 

“I’m going to go now,” Rumplestiltskin said. He had too much to do. He needed to research, but he needed to warn Belle. Things were much more dangerous than they could ever guess. Full empaths were rare because few made it out of childhood. A normal childhood tantrum could spill over to an entire town resulting in riots and fighting. They sometimes killed their parents, trying desperately to silence the constant barrage of emotions they couldn’t understand. More often parents would take the child’s life, sometimes out of misplaced mercy but usually because it was too hard to live with constant truth. 

“What am I?” his son finally said, apparently able to overcome the strong mental defenses Rumplestiltskin had in place. 

He took a deep breath, knowing that the boy needed him. “You’re my son. And so I am going to make sure that everything is okay.”

 


	2. 6x04 rewrite

Belle had felt strange all day. 

It wasn’t anything she could put her finger on, just a sort of heaviness in her heart. She had awoken from a sound sleep in the middle of the night with the strangest feeling that something was wrong. Something that she couldn’t quite name. 

Belle always missed her mother, but that grief was more painful since she discovered she was with child. There were so many little things that she wanted to ask about. How did you go about choosing a name when you hadn’t even met the person yet? Was parenting as terrifying as it felt at this moment? And how could she so fiercely love something that was, she knew, smaller than the head of the pin? Thoughts about her son loomed large on her consciousness, almost as if he were standing with her all the time. It must be that way for all women, she assumed, as they projected their hopes and fears for their offspring with such intensity that it was practically given voice. 

All morning that voice had been telling her that it was scared. That it worried about what it could become. It was making it hard to concentrate on what Killian was saying as he packed up his belongings into a single chest.

“At least you won’t be arguing over closet space,” Belle said absently about his single chest. Her heart felt heavy as she thought about the “fights” she and Rumple has over their closet. Not actual arguments, more teasing over how to divide closet space to hold their equally large wardrobes. In the end they had expanded the closet into the next room, turning it into a full dressing area. She missed that closet, and getting dressed every morning with Rumple choosing his outfit in a way to match her own. She was living out of a single suitcase now, supplementing from orders online for new dresses instead of going home to retrieve her own. 

It was silly. She knew that he would be fine with allowing her to take her belongings. He probably would arrange to be at the shop when she did so. But Belle just couldn’t bring herself to actually move out of their home. It just seemed too final.

“I have something for you,” Hook said, reaching into the chest and pulling out a seashell. “I want you to have this, in case anything happens. It is a mermaid communication device. You blow it and I will hear it and know you are in trouble.”

It was a very kind thing, Belle knew intellectually, but somewhere he gut rebelled. He was too smug, so proud of playing hero without actually caring about what happened to her. His motives weren’t true. He was playing a part, trying to impress everyone else.

It was a terrible thing to think about him, and Belle had no idea where it had come from. Reflexively she handed back the shell. “We have cell phones now. If I need you I will probably use that.”

The pirate seems shocked at her actions, and Belle tried to soften her words. “I am a bit wary of magical solutions these days, you understand.”

“Clever girl,” she heard her husband say as he strode up the gangplank, “magic always comes at a price. Even mermaid magic.”

Hook puffed up his chest and Belle rolled her eyes, but then questioned why she did that. He was being nice. Wasn’t he?

“What are you doing here Rumple?” she asked, her hands going down to her abdomen automatically. The last time she’d seen Rumple she had been telling him that she didn’t want a home with him. Her feelings then had been so passionately angry that she was surprised to feel nothing but curiosity. 

“I had a chat with the Evil Queen and Hyde this morning. He told me that he was coming after you, Belle.”

It was a lie...I mean, that was what she thought. He would lie to get her back, except...he was not lying. She knew. Deep in her bones she knew it was true. “Why would he hurt me?”

“To get back at me,” he said simply. 

Hook chuckled. “Another one of your friends. Tell me, how many people have vowed vengance against you?”

“Including you?” Rumple snarked, before turning to Belle. “I can’t stop him. You can’t hurt the split personality. I don’t know why, exactly, but it’s why Regina wasn’t able to kill the Queen.”

Belle stared at her husband.  _ Go with him. He can protect us. _ Her head and heart were telling her that she should throw him off the ship, but her instincts told her to go where he led. 

“I will go,” she said, chilled by the sense of deja vu. 

“Belle,” Hook said, grabbing her arm, “you can’t. He is just trying to trick you again. You are smarter than this.”

_ He doesn’t care. This is the man who shot you. He is just protecting you because it is in his interest to seem caring.  _

“I’ll call you if anything changes,” she said to the pirate, as she followed Rumple off the ship. 

 

…

 

Rumplestiltskin decided that the house was the best place for a siege. The shop had more magical items, but it also lacked any high ground. Besides, who knew how long it would take to neutralize Hyde. If this was going to be a lengthy affair the house was more comfortable. 

_ And,  _ he thought,  _ it allows us more room to avoid each other. _

That was important. Things were still tense between them. In fact, Rumple has expected Belle to resist her warning and claim that she could protect herself. Not that she couldn’t, in normal circumstances anyway. Belle was impulsive, but also resourceful. However, her pregnancy complicated matter, especially since their child’s empathetic abilities could amp up her impulsive instincts and cloud her thinking. 

Since he had discovered their son was an empath Rumplestiltskin had been researching the condition. There were a number of academic and historical accounts, which he had read before. The stories were hard to read since they typically ended with the empath being killed, or killing everyone else. He had discovered the diaries of the last known empath to live past childhood, and was trying to read through his account to discover any tips to help his child. It was hard, however, since the language was a dialect of an ancient tongue. And what words he could translate made no sense in context. It was a stream of consciousness of feelings without thoughts.

“You cut your hair,” Belle said, as she sat on the bed of the guest room. He was securing the windows, making sure the binding spell would hold any attempts to find entrance. 

“You just noticed?”

“No,” she said, “I just...didn’t know what to say. It isn’t exactly any of my business anymore what you do with your hair.”

Rumple chuckled. With a flick of his wrist he conjured up a bracelet made from his hair. It resembled the mourning jewelry of this world, but was based on a powerful magic from their land. A piece of a sorcerer could be used as a totem, a way to forge a connection that helped share some power between the wearer and the person who created it. It would help her control her feelings. To be able to distinguish her own emotions for their child by sharing some of that connection with him. He should be better able to handle it because of his years of working with magic and controlling his feelings. 

But her wasn’t ready for that conversation yet. And so he simply said that the bracelet would help protect her.

“Just try it,” he said, “I suspect you will feel better once you have it on.”

He used his magic to bind it to her, and immediately she sighed. “Oh, wow. I feel like...just calmer. Is this safe? It must be powerful to make me feel so much better.”

Rumple could only nod, his own mind suddenly in a thrash of doubts and fear. Is this what she had been feeling since the child’s conception? No wonder her actions seemed so rash. 

“It isn’t the type of magic that takes a price from you. It’s a willing sacrifice, the most powerful light magic.”

She hummed. “Can I ask you a question? Why does Hyde want to hurt me? What did you do to him?”

Rumple opted for honesty. Not only because she was more likely to be able to detect his dishonestly because of their child, but because if he wanted to try and repair their marriage he needed to be open. So, he told her about assisting Jekyll with his serum, and about the tragedy that resulted. 

“Jekyll killed her?” she asked, surprised. “But...I thought he was the hero.”

“Everyone is the hero of their story. In his mind his actions were justified by the fact that she was with Hyde.”

“Then why does Hyde blame you? Shouldn’t he be mad at Jekyll? Why come after me and you, and not the part of himself that he is angry at?”

It was a great question. Regina had hoped to kill off her other half by separating them, but it failed for reasons still unknown. But the Queen hadn’t tried to harm her other half, and neither had Hyde. 

Maybe because they couldn’t. Not without harming themselves. 

…

Regina called, asking him to come help with some new formula that would allow them to destroy the “evil” personality. It was nonsense, really, since the personality was still a part of them. There had to be some negative repercussion to killing half your self. 

Then again, he’d assumed that yanking your heart in half and putting it back into two people would have had some downside, but the Charmings seemed fine. Magic was unpredictable in how it seemed to work these days.

He was pulling his coat on as he spoke to Belle. “I’ll be back soon. Whatever happens, don’t leave the house. And if anyone comes, just say my name.”

She was sitting on the couch, a grey throw wrapped around her shoulders. She was absently watching television, some historical documentary. “Rumple,” she said, but then shook her head. 

“What?”

“I just...be careful.”

He could feel the emotions in that sentence. Emotions she was unknowingly projecting to their child, and the baby to him through the bond of the bracelet. Fear of losing this chance at happiness. Wariness at how things always seemed to fall apart between them. But mostly love. It made it hard to leave her having that feeling of love radiate through him, but he needed to handle whatever issue had come up with the heroes before it ended up enveloping them all. 

…

Jekyll was the monster all along. Of course, Rumple knew that. He’d known from the start that Jekyll had killed that girl. But the whole plan become obvious when he had taken the remainder of the potion in his hand. He had worked magic with science before, when he had assisted in the experiment. But this time was different. Nothing happened. 

“It’s a fake,” he said, throwing the vial back to Regina, who used magic to keep it from falling. 

“That’s impossible,” she said.

Jekyll was starting to sweat. “No, it works. It just needs more magic. You need to place it on a magical weapon. Like your dagger.”

Rumple grabbed the doctor by the lapels. “How do you know about that? Because you and your other half don’t know anything about the Dark One, but you know who does?”

He looked at Regina who was starting to understand. “He’s been working with the Evil Queen, why? I thought you hated your other half.”

Jekyll took a swing at Rumple, who held the man in place with magic. “He hates himself, but he hates me more. Thinks that if I hadn’t come along in the first place that things would have worked out. But Mary didn’t love you. She never did. And why should she, you were a weak man who killed her rather than let her be happy with someone else.”

“You may have stopped us this time,” the doctor said, “but how many other enemies do you have? Can you keep them all away from your little wife? Eventually you’ll have to experience the pain that you delivered to everyone else. And I will be there to see you, even if…”

Whatever else he was saying was lost. At that moment all Rumplestiltskin felt was fear. The bond between him and Belle. Whatever she was experiencing at the moment was terrifying. Had Hyde managed to get to her? With a flick of his hand he used magic to snap Jekyll’s neck, but the feeling didn’t do away. He had been so sure that killing the original would kill the duplicate, but Belle was still scared. 

“Was that necessary,” Regina said to the cloud of smoke in Rumple’s wake. 

He ran through the home, looking for Belle. The wards were all still working. Nobody had breached the magic. But still, something was very wrong. 

She was in his study, standing over his desk hyperventilation. Rumple looked down at the pile of books, his research on empaths, and realized what had happened.

“Belle, calm down,” he said, but it was useless. At this point her reactions were totally driven by their son, and he was scared of what she had been reading. Stories of children like him who had been burnt and beaten in an attempt to cleanse them of magic. People driven mad by their children. Destruction and pain in their wake.

“I can’t,” she was sobbing, her face turning almost blue as if she couldn’t breathe. This was desperate, and Rumple had to turn to magic. Reaching out his hand he felt for his son’s presence in Belle’s womb. Focused on the small but powerful life, Rumple made a small protection spell around the child. Immediately Belle could breathe again, and Rumple could felt relief in their connection.

“What did you-”

“A protection spell,” he explained, “to keep him from being able to feel our emotions, and so that we can’t feel his. He’s perfectly safe.”

“I think we both know that isn’t exactly true,” she said, gesturing to the books on his desk.

“He’s going to be safe because we are his parents,” Rumple promised, as he started the long conversation about what was happening to their child. 

 


End file.
